Roddin' @ Random - 1969 Chevy Camaro Slot Car Track

If you even remotely like Camaros, you might want to sit down. This is—was—an original '69 Z/28. It was even running. Now it’s hacked, missing its engine, and carries a Watkins Glen–inspired slot-car race track. “Yeah, people told me I might receive death threats,” says David Beattie, builder and owner of Slot Mods (SlotMods.com). “I am an artist and like to be true to form.” An original, good-running first-gen Z/28 would have fetched a pretty penny at auction. David recently sold the table for north of $85,000.

David and Slot Mods are based out of Detroit, where he specializes in wild, detailed, custom-built slot-car tracks of all kinds, calling them interactive works of art. David began building slot-car tracks after losing his previous job. Starting in his basement as a way of putting food on the table, David built 20x20 boards for around $700 each. He hit his break when his first major client, Jim Farley, a VP at Ford, wanted a large-scale replica of Laguna Seca.

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For the Camaro, the first car Slot Mods has built, the first thing to be addressed was the car’s Detroit-weathered bodywork. The firewall and seat-divider were omitted during the rebuild to make room for the transformers used to power the track. The hardest part of the construction was rounding up parts and info about the original Trans-Am car. Owned by Penske Racing and driven by Mark Donohue, the No. 6 Camaros were campaigned successfully from ’67 to ’69, with an updated car being built every year. Donohue then switched to AMC in 1970. There are plenty of clones, but finding original parts, like the ultra rare Minilite wheels, was difficult. The car was painted twice due to David’s insistence that the first coat didn't match the original Penske color. “This paint job is better than most restorations,” David says.

The team at Slot Mods is going to show off this car at a few more car show/expos around the country before handing it off to its new owner. They plan on lowering the car a little bit, and David’s brother is working on a 12V high-torque motor that will power the steering rack and the rear axle. Then the owner will be able to drive the car, slowly, via remote control—making it a slot-car track on a life-sized remote control car. The child in us just lost his mind.

The next big project for David is a track for Jay Leno. It’s a re-creation of the streets from the stunt chase in Bullitt. We aren't sure how that’s possible, but it’ll probably have a bunch of the same VW bugs around the track. The other big project is a 917 Porsche race car with a Le Mans track on it. He plans on giving that one a similar treatment as the Camaro, although, luckily, that one didn't start life as an original car but a reproduction body. It’s estimated to cost about $125,000, and according to David, “They’re not going to get any cheaper.”